


A Town of missing Men

by ferociouskitten



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon What Canon, Dishonored 2 and DoTO are not going to happen like that, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Local morally gray scientist makes friends and investigates murders, Low Chaos (Dishonored), Murder Mystery, Not tagging characters because spoilers, Post-Low Chaos Ending, the M rating is for a bit of murder not sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 21:37:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20495729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferociouskitten/pseuds/ferociouskitten
Summary: Lavinia nodded. "You said yourself that whatever theory you can't rule out with logic has to be the truth, no matter how absurd it might sound at first."The years 1835 - 1849, from the perspective of Lavinia Milani, Scientist and too curious for her own good. A Dishonored 2/DoTO AU.





	A Town of missing Men

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Artistic_Fuss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artistic_Fuss/gifts).

> There it is, the story of my morally gray scientist. I didn't tag some characters because it would be pretty spoileriffic, but i'll say this much: There is one Canon Dude in a main role.  
Also Blame Artistic_Fuss for being an enabler and helping to come up with this AU.
> 
> The title references Pretty Lavinia, by American Murder Song. Yes i'm doing lyrics as a title like its 2012 don't @ me

I. 1835 

The house was already quiet with most of its inhabitants deep asleep or, in case of the servants, home with their families at night. Yet Lavinia still held her breath as she opened the only window in her room, afraid that the creaking of the metal hinges would wake someone. Rationally, it made no sense to be scared, with the amount of poppy tincture she had snuck into her parents whisky that evening, knowing that the harsh liquor would mask the taste well enough.  
Whatever god had deemed to listen to her silent prayers seemed to feel generous that night, since the window silently swang inwards, a small figure slipping inside, backlit by the moonlight as the whale oil lanterns in the almost lavish bedroom weren’t lit.  
“Do you have it?,” Lavinia asked in hushed tones, her racing heart not quite calming down as her sister simply showed her the blade, a knife not unlike those used to carve up whales out at sea. “Are you sure that you-?”

“Yes. I’ve done something like this before. Trust me.” Her sister interrupted her, wrapping her arms around Lavinia and pulling her into a careful hug. “We got this. Just tonight, and then never again.”  
Lavinia just nodded, steeling her mind as she drew away, forcing herself to stop thinking, to stop being afraid. Just this one last night, never again. They had planned this.  
Well, it had been her sisters idea, forming a plan over months and years in silence even as Lavinia herself still found it hard to see past her own delusions. And now, after it had finally reached a breaking point, they were ready to strike, to take back what was hers. Her life, her freedom. 

Without any further words, Lavinia watched her sister pick the lock on the door that shut her away every night and just when they wanted to. Followed her up the hallway and then down the stairs to the estates living room, lingering in the doorway to watch the passed-out figures of her parents, father on the settee by the fire, whisky tumbler still resting in his limp fingers. Her mother in the armchair by the bookshelf, the light of a dying lantern flickering across her reading glasses. And wasn’t it unfair that cruel people like them wouldn’t even feel their own violent demise?  
Her sister had already entered the room on silent feet, the blade in her hand raised to the father’s throat. Eyes locked with Lavinia, waiting for her decision.  
A quick nod was all it took and the blade found its mark, biting into the neck and leaving a grisly line of glinting red, blood flowing freely, soaking his pristine white shirt and darkening his silken waistcoat. Heavy drops hitting the wooden floors, leaving sizeable puddles on the expensive hardwood, soon after mixing with the mother’s blood that flowed from her neck, staining expensive jewelry and dresses before soaking through the book she had been reading and finally meeting her husbands on the floor. 

Lavinia’s bare feet left trails of red as she walked over to her late parents, her fingers touching the gaping wound on her father’s neck, surprised by how warm it felt, for she had always imagined that his heart must be cold as the tyvian tundras in the depth of winter. She smiled, a thin, cruel smile.  
“And you only have yourself to blame.” Now, wasn’t that ironic? Part of her wished that it had been her wielding the knife, but she knew why she hadn’t. Watching the life quite literally running out of their bodies had to be enough.  
She didn’t count the seconds or minutes they both stand there side by side, blood on their hands and feet and clothes, before her sister drove the knife point first into the wall, as if the killer wanted to make a point. And well, they were, but not in the way the City Watch would think.  
“Let’s burn this place. Burn it to ashes,” Lavinia whispered, turning away towards the kitchens where the spare whale oil tanks were stashed.  
And burn it they did, spreading the oil over the bodies and into every room, lighting it by smashing one of the lanterns against the wall before leaving through the cellar door. 

Leaning against each other, they watched the blaze from a nearby rooftop, both still smeared with blood and oil, their hands and faces dirty.  
“Happy sixteenth birthday, Lavinia.”

II. 1842

The morning meetings with Dr. Gravewood were not all that bad, especially not since there were only the two of them. Sure, it meant more work for Lavinia, too, but at least she got to actually work and not just watch and clean after Gravewood’s other assistant. Every week that went by without there being anyone new in their laboratory was a good week in Lavinias book.

“Oh and Lavinia? Your new colleague, Dr. Hall, will be coming by later today, would you please be so kind and help him get settled?”

She should really stop thinking about things like that, for fate seemed to have a habit of using said thoughts as a way to throw yet another wrench into the gears.  
Dr. Gravewood smiled all to sweetly, knowing just how much Lavinia disliked sharing her laboratory and office with another assistant. Not that she wasn’t able to work with others, just that men, especially those with a doctorate, seemed to enjoy rubbing said title into her face. Void, most of them probably heard what happened to her dissertation and how she almost lost her entire career to the abbey. 

“Sure thing, Ma’am,” Lavinia returned the false smile, at least attempting to not let her past experiences get to her. 

_________

Dr. Hall ended up looking like some noble prettyboy with more money than sense, except he didn’t also dress the part. At least he didn’t immediately try to flirt with her on introduction, which was already a blessing on itself.

“So you must be Dr. Gravewoods other assistant, Dr…?”, he asked, already looking around his clearly marked half of their shared laboratory, raising his eyebrow at the not at all friendly notes Lavinia had put up on the cabinets containing some of the more expensive chemicals and equipment and hadn’t bothered to remove. 

“Lavinia Milani. Without the doctorate,” She replied, friendly smile holding back the venom. Hall just nodded at that, probably remembering the attached scandal.  
Lavinia held back a sigh and instead continued the tour, explaining the system behind their chemical storage and showing him the access door to the basement level where the dissection rooms were located, as well as the specimen collection and the morgue. Hall stayed mostly quiet, sometimes asking questions that he seemed to have actually thought out before and Lavinia could feel some of her rather hostile opinions of that particular man dissipate. It wasn’t enough for her to feel hopeful, but at least he didn’t seem to be much of an asshole. 

After a while, they finished their tour of the floor at their shared office adjacent to their laboratory. Hall’s predecessor had left his half almost sterile-looking beneath the faint layer of dust that had collected there over the previous weeks. In contrast, Lavinias space was littered with books and reports, shelves filled with a collection of what she liked to call her ‘favorite deads’, specimen both human and animal that she had come across and deemed interesting. There was a decent-sized terrarium housing carrion beetles currently also containing the skull of an unfortunate murder victim for cleaning. Of course, everything was kept on the outside windowsill to dissipate any odors. Lavinia wasn’t an amateur. 

She hadn’t expected Hall to look at her collection with a spark of true interest in his eyes. 

“I didn’t take you for a collector,” he stated, prompting Lavinia to let out a genuine laugh.

“Well I just happen to like dead things, especially when they are interesting.”

Now it was Hall’s turn to smile, all open and genuine and fuck, if he were a Lady, Lavinia might have been tempted to flirt.  
“Then i have the feeling that we might get along nicely.”

III. 1845

The day had started quite pleasant, but of course did it start to rain as Lavinia was right on her way home. Void, she hated those fall rainstorms, that one couldn’t escape from, not even here in Karnaca.  
Hurrying down the street, she fought to keep her bag with her notes dry, clutching it against her chest as the usual shitty weather turned into something truly ferocious. Not really able to see where exactly she was headed, she entered the first store that happened to be on her side of the street, simply because it was dry inside. Maybe she could wait out the worst of the downpour there. 

Squinting over the top of her rain-covered glasses, Lavinia recognized blurry shapes of what might have been a bookstore’s interior. Well. There were worse places to be stuck at. Setting her bag down on the counter for a moment, she used the hem of her jacket to wipe off her glasses, so she could actually see what kind of bookstore this was. It had to be fairly new, or she just hadn’t noticed it before. Both were reasonable possibilities, since she tended to walk to or from work in the dark. 

Her glasses clean, Lavinia started looking around, bag abandoned on the counter for the moment. It was surprising to see more scientific titles about a variety of subjects on the shelves than penny novels, or literary works. It felt like an odd place in general, almost like a museum at times. There were many odd things on display, on the shelves in between the books that seemed to be in every major language spoken in the isles.  
Exotic seashells, too colorful to be from somewhere other than pandyssian shores. Plants just as exotic, with one in particular slowly creeping down from her pot and along the edges of some display cabinet, filled with more things that looked like they had to have been pulled from the sea, weathered pieces of glass, jars with preserved specimen. Bones in odd shapes, skulls of animals that took a while to identify. Silvergraphs and drawings of ships, modern whaling trawlers as well as old sail-powered ships with their sleek silhouette build for maximum speed. Oddly mismatched lamps and furniture.  
Even half of a whale mandible, complete with its imposing teeth, hanging above the door to what was probably a back room, the blade that cut it out of the animal displayed beneath it.  
Lavinia felt a smile spreading on her face not a minute into her looking around, completely fascinated by both the books and the items strewn among them. 

“Can I help you, Miss..?”  
A friendly voice made Lavinia turn around in surprise, she simply hadn’t heard the man who had to be the owner enter the room. 

“Not really… erm, I just wanted to wait out the downpour if i’m honest,” Lavinia answered, fidgeting with the hem of her waistcoat, a bit embarrassed by how easy he had managed to sneak up on her like that.

The man smiled slightly at that, what had to be a naturally stern face softening into something more friendly. “You’ll be stuck here for a while then, I’m afraid, so feel free to look around.”

Lavinia laughed softly. “Oh, I will, thank you. It’s an interesting collection, just as fascinating at the books if not more, “ she answered, gesturing at some of the books and curios on the shelf next to her. “It’s just… lots of these things, I haven’t seen them outside of the university’s library, or the collection of the royal conservatory.” There was genuine wonder in her voice, and she didn’t care if it sounded childish. 

“You’re a scientist, then, Miss?,” he asked, actually sounding interested and not condescending at all, which already raised her opinion of him. Too many men still laughed at the idea of women working or studying at an university, even if it had become more common during the last decade. The shopkeeper didn’t seem like that kind of man, anyway. 

“Yes, I studied medicine in the widest sense, but with a focus on the research and biology behind it.” She smiled, that same childish wonder still in her eyes. “There are so many things still undiscovered about how the human body works, about life, death, and anything inbetween, things that have a logical, scientific explanation and not just some mysterious higher power to blame for, as certain voices like to do.” She looked at him, and her smile didn’t fade once she saw genuine interest on his face. 

“An interesting field you’ve found for yourself. Very broad,” he mused, looking like he had some knowledge in that direction as well. “Care for some tea? I have a kettle on the stove already, we could continue our conversation in a minute. I’m Carlo Demorto, by the way.”

“Uh, sure? Thanks,” Lavinia replied, a bit taken off-guard by the genuine interest. Besides, he seemed like a kind man, so why not take the offer. If he were an asshole, or a creep, it would have showed by now. “I’m Lavinia.”

He just nodded at her words, then excused himself and vanished into the door to the back room.  
It was a weird thing to realize, but somehow he didn’t make any sounds while walking, and it reminded her of her sister. A redshark in the water.  
Comparing him to something that graceful seemed… appropriate, somehow. Sure, he looked like an ordinary old man, with hair and beard already a full white, the former slicked back and the latter trimmed with precision, wire-rimmed glasses and unassuming clothes. But there seemed to be something off, the grey eyes awake and alert, always watching for something on the horizon, and somehow she could see him at the helm of a whaling trawler, leading the hunt for the great leviathans.  
Old, faded scars crossing his face, some small, others not. She was curious about the stories behind them, but knew it wasn’t polite to ask. 

IV. 1847

On most days, Lavinia loved her job. Today was not one of those, and the reason for it had just walked into their laboratory not half an hour ago. It had taken only the tell-tale sound of grand guard boots on the tiled floors for her colleague and partner to excuse himself on some technicality about the body being hers do deal with in Dr. Gravewood’s absence.  
That, and the fact that Lavinia knew Hall and thus knew that he was even worse at explaining things to people than her. Which left her stuck with a body that definitely didn’t die in a suicidal incident and a guard captain who refused to listen to her.  
She’d just started sawing the still unidentified body’s sternum apart so she could get a proper look at the thoracic organs when Captain Perez had walked in.  
Listening to him berating her for not being able to work miracles and finish a complicated post-mortem in under an hour while either proving a suicide, accident or natural death didn’t help her mood at all. 

“For the third time, yes, the injuries to the skull are consistent to the body hitting the rocks where it was found. But that still does not prove that the fall killed him! To prove that i’d have to examine the brain-”

“Well maybe your delicate lady brain needs examination, with how often you’ve been forgetting your place, Miss. This here is clearly a suicide, and any intelligent person could’ve seen it already.” 

Perez’ words were like a lit match dropped into a barrel of whale oil. If asked, Lavinia would’ve said that she hadn’t known she could move that fast. But she did, the butt end of the bonesaw connecting with the good Captain’s nose with a sickening crunch in a wide swing.  
Lavinia was distantly aware of the picture she made, with the blood on her lab coat and the bonesaw clutched in her right, having somehow gotten around the dissection table and right up in his face in what could have been only a few moments, a neat line of cast-off blood splatter describing an equally neat arc across the light-colored wall, telling just how close that saw had gotten to the man’s throat.

The Captain just turned without any word, hurrying out of her lab with one hand clutching his broken nose, blood flowing down his face. 

___________

Lavinia set her bag down behind the counter of Demorto’s bookstore with a dull thump, ignoring any and all manners as she blatantly stole the man’s cup of coffee from said counter. Void knew she needed it.  
“Bad Day?”, he just asked, in that slightly sarcastic way he always did. 

“Besides the fact that i probably got myself fired? No.” Lavinia set the cup down with a tad more force than necessary, before sitting down on one of the armchairs in the small reading corner. Demorto just raised one scarred eyebrow, asking her to elaborate without even speaking a word. “I punched a guard captain in the nose. With a bone saw. And kinda almost cut his throat in the process,” she sighed, undoing her braid to comb out some particularly stubborn bits of dried blood. 

“Did he deserve it?”

“Fuck yeah he did.”

Demorto’s mouth curved up in a small smile that looked entirely too much like a cat after killing a particularly fat rat. “Then what’s the problem?”

Lavinia almost wanted to punch him too. “The problem is that Perez now has a reason to complain to those men in suits that kind of decide if i’m keeping my position or not.”

“He won’t.” Demorto said while pouring himself a new cup of coffee. “Men like him tend to be too proud to admit that someone they see as beneath them finally gets them,” he elaborated when Lavinia just looked at him like he’d just admitted to being in cahoots with the abbey. “I’ve dealt with enough overly motivated guards and harbour captains and nobles that decided to cheat me and mine out of our pay after working for them. Sometimes a more ..direct approach is what it takes to make them understand your point.”

“So you’re saying that sometimes violence is the answer?”

“Something like that.”

Lavinia smiled too.

V. 1849

"Look, we both agree that there is a pattern with those murders, that's strong enough to think they might have the same person behind them, right?"  
Lavinia pinched the bridge of her nose, pushing her glasses up in the process before reaching for her teacup. There was a lingering headache caused by too much time spend in less than ideally ventilated laboratories and too little sleep that decided now would be a great time to reintroduce itself. 

Demorto, sitting opposite of her in one of his comfortable armchairs, nodded slowly.  
"I think so. Five Bodies, in about as many weeks? And that's just those the guard managed to find. Definitely too much for a coincidence."

There was an edge to his voice, Lavinia noticed, but dismissed it quickly. The recent series of murders had the whole city either spooked or up to their neck in work.  
"What I don't get is the motive behind it. I… did some research, on similar cases, and most are some version of the three most common ones," she took a sip of her tea, a strong, spicy variety she knew Demorto preferred when discussing something like this.  
"The first one, Sex. Normally comes with one type of victims, either pretty women or those who are easy targets. Which is not the case here, so i'd put that aside for now." 

Demorto frowned a little but nodded, gesturing at her to continue. 

"Second, Money. The guard's corrupt as they get, but even their reports state that most bodies still had their valuables on them. Don't look at me like that, my Boss had them on her desk and i happened to sneak a look." Lavinia shook her head lightly, leaning back in her seat.  
"Could be a professional," she continued, tilting her head a bit as she caught her friend in a subtle flinch, "- since some of them had coin on their heads, but why not claim said coin, then? And I doubt that someone going after people for private employers would be that sloppy."

"Agreed. Any assassin good enough to take on private contracts would know how nobody appreciates an unnecessary mess. And void, even my crew claimed any reward that happened to run into us." His words had a grim tone to it, sounded like there was a story behind it - but Lavinia wouldn't pry, not with this mess that they had to focus on right now. 

"Leaves the third option. Power. First idea would be some gang cleaning house, but there is literally no connection between the bodies. They seem to be chosen totally at random." She couldn't keep a bit of frustration out of her voice, Void, she hated mysteries like that, but definitely wanted to get to the bottom of this one.  
"Just for the thrill of it, maybe? Someone who wants to feel the power of sending another poor soul to the void, and now got addicted to it?"

Demorto, to her surprise, shrugged a bit, before refilling both of their teacups.  
"Could be. Could be something else entirely, but it's the best we had yet."

VI. 1849

Lavinia hurried down the dark street, still full of adrenaline and giddy that it had worked. That her notes she’d been missing had been where she thought they would be, and that she had gotten away with breaking and entering to get them back.  
Well, technically. She hadn’t broken anything, and the notes had been hers in the first place. Was just entering a crime? She sure as void wouldn’t try to find out the details.  
Arriving at her destination had her out of her thoughts, the bookstore itself already dark and locked. But she could see light shining through beneath the door to the back reading room, a sign that Demorto was still up. Probably trying to figure out this voiddamn mystery too.  
Moments like these had her glad that most locks were utterly shit, and that Nika had insisted on teaching her how to pick said locks. That it might be not the nicest way to walk into a place not yours was something she didn’t care about right now. Her notes, the things she’d discovered were way too important to wait until the next day. 

Having crossed the storeroom in a few, hurried steps, Lavinia was just about to reach for the door that lead to the reading room, when it basically opened in her face. Seeing Demorto stare at her with what might have been murderous intent in his eyes while holding a sizeable knife like he knew exactly what he was doing had her stumble back a step, raising her hands.  
“Relax, it’s me, Lavinia,” she hastily said, not quite sure if he’d recognized her in the dim light. 

“Void, Girl…,” He breathed after a moment, relaxing and more importantly, putting the knife away. But he didn’t sound angry at all, which was good, right?  
“Come in,” Demorto gestured, closing the door behind them once Lavinia had followed the offer. 

“...Sorry for scaring you, but, well, to my defense your lock is kind of shitty,” Lavinia apologized, not really sounding sorry at all.  
Demorto just grumbled something at that, watching her spread her notes across the small table from his place in his armchair. 

Most of her notes had been hastily scribbled, reports on not-quite approved post-mortems, an attempt to document things her professor had missed at first, later turning into something documenting her suspicions. That Gravewood was involved, somehow. Then her notes had been going missing. 

“But, back to topic, I found my notes, finally. They’re not complete, but it’s fine, we now have proof that whatever this is, it’s big.” Lavinia gestured at the pile, pointing at a few reports and sketches in particular.  
“Those bodies, Professor Gravewood said they’d died a natural death, but they have no blood in them. There are needle marks, you see,” She handed him a few silvergraphs she’d managed to take with Hall’s help. “And it didn’t happen post mortem, see, the bruising? It’s just not possible to miss something like that.”  
Finally, Lavinia took a breath, looking up at Demorto, whose face was as unreadable as always as he very slowly nodded.

“Those are needle marks.” He frowned. “Even I can see that, and I’m not a doctor,” he added, sounding thoughtful as he got up, adding the silvergraph he’d held to the board in the corner where they had pinned the most important things discovered during their ...investigation. 

Lavinia nodded. “Exactly. Gravewood has to be covering for someone, or is involved herself. It’s just ...the logical thing. You said yourself that whatever theory you can’t rule out, how nonsensical it might be, has to be the truth.”  
She took a moment to actually sort her thoughts, turn the caffeine-fueled mess that they were into something resembling a structured theory.  
“And I found my notes in Ashworth’s desk. Who is the head of the royal conservatory since.. About last year? So she’s probably involved in this, too.”

At that, Demorto turned around, and Lavinia saw something shift in his posture, as he very deliberately took his glasses off. Something turning him from the kind old man she’d called her friend to someone dangerous. The picture of a redshark came to her mind again, as he stalked across the room, towards his desk.  
“Ashworth? Breanna Ashworth?”, he asked, fixing her with his now piercing eyes. It sounded like he recognized the name, and not in a good way.

Lavinia nodded.  
Demorto swore, half of the curses in a language Lavinia couldn’t place.

**Author's Note:**

> Did you figure it out? Also, find me on tumblr dot com, I'm darthfluff over there.


End file.
